Guarding Skye, Avoiding Skye
by NothatRose
Summary: Ward has been assigned to guard Skye. But he keeps avoiding her. SkyeWard definitely.


**Hey**, ... How are you all doing? Here's something new. Hope you like it.

**Disclaimer** : I do not own Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

**Summary** : Skye needs to know why Ward is avoiding her.

xox

"What are you doing?"

Ward need not turn his head to know that it was Skye standing on the threshold of the emergency exit asking him that question. Since being back with the team, he had remained distant from them except with Fitz. Albeit the reason for his return was to protect and guard Skye, he has been avoiding her as much as he possibly could.

Coulson, a believer in second chances, had visited Ward in prison. After a lengthy talk under the effects of the truth serum, Ward had opened up to reveal his history of abuse and manipulation by this family and Garrett. Months before, as Ward was being led away to prison, Coulson had asked him what he is without Garrett.

Ward had replied with a faraway smile, "I can be free to be with the one who freed me."

After the kidnap attempts on Skye, Coulson had decided that the best person to protect Skye is her former SO. Of course Skye had jumped sky high in protest. May had immediately shut herself off in her room. Simmons had trembled in fear. Trip had took a step closer to Simmons. Only Fitz had jumped with joy. He still had confidence in Ward. And he hoped Ward will help him to gather the little courage to pursue Simmons. Especially after seeing that little step Trip took to be closer to Simmons. His Simmons.

Not wanting to be cooped in his room, after months of being holed up in solitary within the prison walls, Ward had found a place of solace. Sitting on the wing of the Bus, with his back resting against the body of the plane, he gained the freedom that he needed. A freedom to breathe the outdoor air and enjoy the scenery of the world outside. Even if the view was just an airplane runway that still emitted heat from the afternoon sun.

"Dinner." He replied without looking at her.

"Why here?"

"The view."

"There's nothing but the runway."

"Beats counting bricks." Ward replied as he pushed his food around his plate.

"Drink?" Skye asked as he handed him a bottle of water.

"Thanks." Ward took the bottle off her hands.

"Can I sit?"

"It's a big wing." Ward shrugged.

"And you are a big - "

"Monster. I know." He murmured before taking a gulp of the drink.

"I was going to say ass."

"What's the difference?"

"An ass is an ass, but monsters," Skye took a deep breath before adding softy. "Not all monsters are evil."

"Yeah?" Ward finally raised his head to look at her. "Name one monster that's not evil, Skye."

"Cookie Monster."

Ward had to give in to a smirk.

"There, was that so hard?" Skye pointed to his lips.

"What are you trying to do?"

"Talk to you."

"I thought we are done talking." Ward muttered as he began pushing his food around his plate again.

"So is that the reason why you have been avoiding me? Because you thought we are done talking? You seem to forget that I like to talk." Skye said as she sat beside him.

Ward sighed.

"I take that sigh as a sign of surrender. So, here's question number one," Skye said without missing a beat. "Is it true? Your reason for coming back and letting AC tag you like he did me, is to protect me?"

"Yes."

"Then how come you keep avoiding me?"

Ward raised his wrist to show her his watch and then pointed to hers. "We both know where the other is all the time. Besides, in there," Ward tiled his head towards their new hideout called The Playground, "you are surrounded by your friends."

"So what does that make you? My enemy? Their enemy?" Skye spat at him. "Don't you think it's a little weird to have an enemy assigned as my Bodyguard when we are out on a mission or a trip to the store, when my friends are not around to see if I'm coddled with love or smothered with hate?"

"I came back to protect you. And you know I'll never hurt you. It is up to you if you want to see me as the enemy or a friend."

"Why? Why do you need to protect me?"

"I've already told you the reason," Ward told her and was surprised when she took the fork out of his hand. She pierced the tines through several layers of salad and a tomato.

"Which one? The one about how you feel for me? Or the one about you never want me hurt? Or the one about us being the same?" Skye returned the full fork to him. "If the answers are all of the above, it doesn't run from the fact that you need strength to protect me. So eat."

Ward took the fork but didn't bring it to his mouth. He frowned as he laid it on his plate again.

"Hey," Skye moved so that they sat facing one another rather than side by side. She nudged his knee with hers. "I'm not trying to push you around into doing anything that you don't want. AC told me about everything that happened to you. Your family. Garrett."

"I don't need or want your pity, Skye."

"I'm not giving you that. Can you just listen to me? Hear what I have to say?"

"That's what I've done all my life. Listen to instructions. Follow the orders. Obey the commands. So, what is it you want me to do, besides finishing my food?"

"You know I don't have the strength to toss you over the side of this wing. But I can head butt your nose like you taught me to, for being such an exasperating ass for thinking I'm ordering you to do anything but eat your dinner. Which I am coaxing not ordering!"

"I'm used to getting beat up for a lesser reason." Ward shrugged and gave a little humorless smile although his eyes remained on the plate.

"What have they done to you?" Skye questioned softly, directing it more to her than to him as she studied his quiet profile.

Ward remained silent to her question as he placed the untouched plate of his dinner by his side. He then brought one knee up to rest his forearm on it. His eyes stared out into the runway as he rested the back of his head against the plane.

"Tell me," Skye started but stopped and changed the direction of her question. "Ward, what's in your heart?"

He remained silent.

"AC said that you told him that you are free to be with the one who freed you. What do you mean by that?"

Silence.

"Who freed you?" Skye gently cupped his jaw to face her.

"You," Ward replied after their eyes met. With a subtle shake of his head, he moved out of Skye's touch. "But it doesn't matter any more."

"Why?"

"Things have changed between us. You will never see me as you did before. And maybe we are not the same as I thought we were."

"If I believe that you are evil, it's because you kill innocent people. If I believe you are a traitor, it's because you betrayed us. If I believe I hate you, it's because you hurt me." Skye hesitantly raised her hand to lay it upon his arm. "I believe that's how I'm suppose to feel but I keep forgetting to hate you.

"We have crossed so many lines, since the day you kidnapped me. I don't know what to think of what we have at times. Even now, I do not know where I stand with you. I don't know if I should trust my heart or my head."

"I'm the last person that you should ask for advise, Skye."

"But only you have the answers to my questions."

"What do you want to know?"

"What's in your heart?"

"Just you," Ward replied in a husky whisper after a long silence.

"Just exactly when did you realized that you have feelings for me?" Skye asked as she traced circles on his arm with her thumb.

"Since the day I was ordered to tail you."

"What? From what I know, the day you kidnapped me was your first day on the job. How could Coulson ordered you to - "

"Not Coulson."

"Not AC?"

"No."

"You mean, Garrett?"

Ward nodded.

"How long did you stalked me?"

"Every day. For four months."

"You are kidding me, right?" Skye's jaw dropped.

Ward shook his head.

"How could I have not seen you?"

"Super Spy?" Ward replied with a shrugged and she smacked his arm away.

Skye then crawled back to sit beside him. She hugged her knees and laid her head on them as she look at him. "What now?"

"Protect you."

"You used to act like a robot. Now, you are really beginning to sound like one." Skye grumbled.

"After what I've done, I can't ask for anything more than that," he said and took another gulp of water from the bottle.

"Do you ever asked for anything? From anyone?" Skye asked and took the bottle out of his hand before he could screw the cap on. She drank all of the remainder.

"No. Because it is always the other way around. Besides, it's no use. I never get want I want."

"You are getting what you want, now." Skye told him.

"What?"

"Protecting me." Skye nudged his shoulder with hers.

xox

Later that night, Ward sensed a presence as he sat on the wing again. Pivoting his head towards the sound, he could hear footsteps that he had learned to recognize. Five seconds later, a blanket and a pillow landed beside him. A warm mug of beverage came into his line of vision and he took what was offered.

"Still watching the Runway Channel? See anything interesting running across the tarmac? A roadrunner? A coyote with a frying pan?" Skye asked as sat down beside him. "Or are you playing Connect the Dots with the stars?"

Ward helped to hold her mug as she placed her pillow in front of her and arranged her blanket around her. "Thanks," she said when he handed her the mug back.

"What's this?" Ward asked as he stared down at his mug.

"That's marshmallows floating on the chocolaty ocean of cocoa and coffee. I've added extra milk but less sugar to yours. Just because you don't sleep. That don't mean you need to get hyper like some hyperactive chipmunk."

"Hyperactive chipmunk?"

"Didn't you watch Alvin and the Chipmunk? No?" Skye patted his knee when he shook his head. "No worries. We'll remedy that as soon as I can get hold of the movie. Come on. Drink up. What? Don't give me that look. You introduced me to your," Skye rolled her eyes and crunched her nose before continuing, "supposedly healthy veggie medicinal concoction. So, let me return the favour and introduce you to my version of a healthy concoction."

"There is no way you can convince me that this is healthy." Ward glanced down at her.

"It's good for the soul. That's healthy, don't you think?" Skye lightly tapped her mug against his but caught his arm as he was about to take a sip. "Wait hang on. I almost forget. Hold this."

Skye gave him her mug to hold as she took a flat box out of her pajama pocket. She tore the box open and took two wafer straws out and dunked one into each mug. She then took her mug and sipped the warm beverage with the straw.

"Mmmm... Heaven," she moaned after a long sip. She tilted her chin to pointedly tell Ward to do the same. He complied.

"Well?" She playfully tapped on his foot with hers after he remained quiet after a sip. "What does it taste like? What does it make you think of? What does it remind you of? Come on. Share what's on your mind."

"You."

"What?"

"It makes me think of you." He smiled as he twirled the wafer around the mug. It broke and Skye wordlessly replaced it with another.

"Why?"

"It's something new that I have never had. Just like when I first saw you. Something fresh and lively."

"Did I look like a freaking chicken to you?"

He took another sip and ignored her rambling. "It's sweet. Like you were when you help that small boy to find his Mom in that crowded mall during the holidays."

"You saw that?" Skye asked in disbelieve.

"Yes. I was just a few paces behind you when you found his Mom. I almost broke my cover because I so much wanted to talk to you." Ward told her and he took another sip. "It's warm. Just like your welcoming vibes."

"Vibes?"

"I don't know how to explain it." Ward said as he gazed into her eyes looking for the right word. "It's just you. Your smile. Your bubbly I-want-to-be-your-friend-charm. Your eyes. They just - ' He sighed and sipped the drink again.

"It is also rich. As rich as your goodness. It gives me strength. Comfort. Security. Safe. And a feeling that I never felt before for anyone. I - " Ward seemed to snapped out before saying what he really meant to say. Plucking the wafer out, he drained the whole beverage in one gulp before murmuring, "This may even lead to an addiction."

"Are you calling me an addiction?"

"I am calling you a compliment."

They shared a chuckle and sat side by side watching the stars together in companionable silence.

"Do you still love me?" Skye whispered suddenly.

"I don't know how to stop, Skye." He sighed.

"Even after how I treated you? Calling you a monster."

"I will never blame you for that. It was not your fault. You have the right to hate and detest me for what I did." Ward told her. "Like I said we are not the same anymore."

"But you wouldn't be who you are if your family and Garrett had treated you different." Skye moved to sit facing him. "Fitz said that no one is born evil. I didn't want to believe him. But looking back, I realized that if I had not the nuns at St Agnes to treat me with kindness and love, I wouldn't be the person I am today.

"It was a blessing in disguise that I was sent back from the Brody's. I hacked into their files recently and found out that all the children that they adopted didn't turn out good. You may be bad for what you did. But deep inside you are good."

Skye inched closer to cupped his stubble roughen jaw in her hands much like she did earlier that evening.

"Remember what you said the first time we met? During the interrogation after AC jabbed you? You said, you did kill people. Because they are bad people who wanted to kill nice people. But even that didn't make you feel nice afterwards. If you are really bad, you wouldn't give a damn if they are bad. But we now know that they may have been good but your bad and mad leader made you think that they are bad. So, whatever it is, you are still good.

"You did all you could to save the people that you care for. Maybe in some twisted way, but you did saved FitzSimmons. They had a better chance of survival thrown out of the plane than staying in there with that crazy man who controlled you. You knew that, that was why you flushed them out into the ocean. You didn't want them to die at the end of real bullets.

"I betrayed the team too. I knew how hard it was. It was not easy when you started to care for the people around you. Just like you, I was made to do something that I don't realized the real objective behind it. But we both went into it because we had our own good reason.

"I came in to find my parents. And you - "

"I came in to be with you." Ward finished her sentence.

"And that makes us the same. See?"

They both sighed a smile as Skye's hands finally released her hold on his jaw. She rested her arms on his knees and propped her chin on them.

"Are you going to be ok?"

"Honestly?"

"I'd appreciate that." She smirked at him with wink.

"As long as I know you are safe, I'm good." Ward returned her smile with one of his own. "Skye?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm sorry for everything I did to you." He said with eyes full of sincerity.

"Don't make me anymore of that healthy shake of yours and I'll let it roll off my back." Skye replied in a joking manner even as her voice broke from a sudden emotion.

"Please don't cry." Ward pleaded as Skye's lips began to tremble and tears flowed down her cheeks. She suddenly crawled onto his lap and he immediately enveloped her in his arms. Holding her close and placing soft kisses on her hair as he soothe her tears away. His gentleness only made Skye cried more.

It was a long time before her crying stopped.

"What's the real reason you have been avoiding me?" Skye asked as he tenderly traced the side of her face as he cradled her against his chest.

"I didn't want to scare you anymore than you are already are scared of me. Or make you hate me more than you already do."

"I can never hate you. I tried." Skye said as she pulled at the strings of his hoodie.

"Will you ever love me?" Ward whispered as he slowly retracted his fingers from her face. Afraid of her answer.

"Try stopping me, Robot."

**THE END**


End file.
